Kris Kristofferson on the cover of his 1971 album The Silver Tongued Devil and I, photographed by Baron Wolman the previous year while in costume for Cisco Pike (1973).
Vitals
Kris Kristofferson as Cisco Pike, down-on-his-luck musician and former drug dealer
Venice Beach, California, Fall 1970
Film: Cisco Pike
Release Date: January 14, 1972
Director: Bill L. Norton
Costume Designer: Rosanna Norton
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
He’s a poet, he’s a picker, he’s a prophet, he’s a pusher, he’s a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he’s stoned. He’s a walkin’ contradiction—partly truth and partly fiction—takin’ every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.
In tribute to the late outlaw country icon who died one month ago today at the age of 88, I recently received a great suggestion from a BAMF Style reader to cover the style that Kris Kristofferson wore in Bill L. Norton’s directorial debut Cisco Pike.
After a brief appearance in Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie, Kristofferson replaced Seymour Cassel at the last minute to make his starring debut as the eponymous Cisco, a luckless singer-songwriter blackmailed by crooked LAPD narcotics detective Leo Holland (Gene Hackman) into selling $10,000 worth of marijuana over a single weekend.
Cisco: That’s an awful lot of grass to turn in two days, man.
Sgt. Holland: It’s not really two days, though, you know, it’s, uh- you got the rest of today and, uh, well the weekend… that’s like fifty-nine hours. You figure that out, it’s about two keys an hour, if you want to figure it that way.
Cisco: Two keys an hour? Do I get to punch a time clock?
In addition to his lead performance, Kristofferson also contributed three songs to the soundtrack—”Breakdown (A Long Way from Home)”, “Lovin’ Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)”, and “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33″—all of which would also appear on his subsequent album The Silver Tongued Devil and I. The cast also includes Karen Black as Cisco’s yogi girlfriend Sue, Harry Dean Stanton as Cisco’s former bandmate Jesse Dupre, Warhol superstar Viva, and Roscoe Lee Browne as the pawnshop owner who refuses to buy Cisco’s guitar.
More than a year after filming wrapped, Cisco Pike was released in January 1972 to generally negative reviews, though it has since been more positively reevaluated and found a sizable cult following.
What’d He Wear?
Kris Kristofferson wore mostly (if not entirely) his own clothing in character as the troubadour Cisco, including the brown suede jacket he sported while performing at the Isle of Wight in August 1970, several months before filming commenced on Cisco Pike.
Kristofferson steps up into the frame during Cisco Pike‘s opening credits.
The roomy jacket follows the “trucker jacket” design popularized by the contemporary denim Levi’s “Type III” jacket with its shirt-style collar, waist-length cut, and flapped chest pockets aligned with a horizontal chest yoke. Each closing with a single silver-toned snap, these flaps are pointed like the bottoms of each pocket they cover. These snaps match the six silver-finished snaps up the front, which uniquely close in the right-over-left configuration typically reserved for women’s clothing, as well as the single snap closing each cuff.
Cisco begins the movie wearing an indigo-blue long-sleeved shirt made from a warp-faced cotton twill that presents as a lightweight denim. This western-styled shirt has the requisite pointed front and back yokes as well as flat silver-finished snaps up the front placket, closing the pointed flaps over both chest pockets, and arranged in sets of three on each barrel cuff.
Cisco initially cycles between a few identically styled shirts in varying shades of blue, though his canonical shirt is the darkest shade of indigo that nearly matches his jeans. He appears to have several of these shirts as Sue also wears one at the same time as Cisco.
After his “minute, missionary-style” tryst with Sue, they appear to both be wearing two identical indigo snap-up shirts.
For a few of his dealings over the course of the weekend, Cisco wears a simple dark-blue short-sleeved T-shirt with a short mockneck.
Through the final act of Cisco Pike, Cisco wears a black sateen long-sleeved shirt with a distinctive brown animal-printed design covering the western yokes over his shoulders. The shirt has a spread collar, button-up placket, three-button cuffs, and two chest pockets with pointed flaps that each close through a single button. Unlike the snap-up western shirt he wore at the beginning of the story, this black shirt has traditional buttons made of black plastic.
Together with the brown suede jacket and his indigo Levi’s, this shirt completes the outfit that Kristofferson also wore when photographed by Baron Wolman for the cover of his 1971 album The Silver Tongued Devil and I, which includes three songs from the Cisco Pike soundtrack. He also wears a version of this shirt in green when dressed in his leather-trimmed black bolero jacket with matching black jeans and boots.
Clearly identified by the signature red tab along the seam of the back-right patch pocket, Cisco’s dark indigo denim Levi’s reflect the five-pocket arrangement and straight fit of their iconic 501® Original Fit jeans.
Cisco holds his jeans up with a light-brown leather belt that closes through a dramatically oversized and elongaged brass-finished single-prong buckle.
Cisco’s initial blue snap-front shirt appears slightly lighter in his scenes with Holland.
Cowboy boots have long been an iconic part of the Texas-born Kristofferson’s image, naturally incorporated into his characterization of Cisco Pike. Made from light-brown napped leather uppers, these boots have the classic bug-and-wrinkle vamp design and decoratively stitched calf-high shafts.
Representing his musical profession, Cisco wears Kristofferson’s silver-toned guitar pendant on a thin silver rope-chain necklace that hangs low on his chest.
With 37 hours until his money is due to him on Monday morning, Holland threatens a shirtless Cisco for insulting him.
The flashbacks to Cisco’s late 1960s heyday performing with Jesse suggest that the brown suede jacket was paired with matching trousers, which he wore together on stage with a navy-blue turtleneck.
Early scenes show a stainless-cased watch on a dark leather strap under the left cuff of Kristofferson’s shirt, but he doesn’t seem to be wearing it after the opening sequence.
On the other hand (so to speak), Sergeant Holland wears a great-looking stainless chronograph with a “panda” dial sporting two black sub-registers against a white face, secured to his left wrist on a black leather strap—arguably the coolest thing about his otherwise pedestrian plainclothes cop costume.
Once he’s back to dealing to fulfill his arrangement with Holland, Cisco not only resumes wearing his watch but also changes into a unique black leather-trimmed suede bolero jacket over a colorfully embroidered green two-pocket work shirt for much of the second act until changing back into the brown suede jacket and indigo Levi’s for the duration of the movie.
What to Imbibe
Cisco doesn’t drink much on screen, aside from taking a pull from the 7 Up bottle in front of Brother Buffalo (Antonio Fargas) and then bracing himself for a repeat tryst with Merna (Viva) by swigging some of her Smirnoff “Red Label” 80-proof vodka.
The Car
Cisco initially rents a burnt-orange 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle Concours station wagon to deal Holland’s weed across L.A. The nondescript four-door wagon was a smart choice to both avoid attraction while also providing enough room for Cisco to store all the grass he needs to sell. The upmarket Concours and Concours Estate trim were reserved especially for wagons by the ’71 model year, which was offered with three of Chevy’s V8 engines from the small-block 307 and 350 “Turbo Fire” up to the 400 “Turbo Jet” that generated 300 horsepower.
We don’t see enough of Cisco’s rented wagon to determine which motor powers it, though the lack of faux-wood grain informs that it’s a Concours (rather than a Concours Estate) model and is mated to either the two-speed Powerglide or three-speed Hydra-matic automatic transmission.
The final scene depicts Cisco “runnin’ from his devils” in a lilac-colored 1958 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Holiday four-door hardtop sedan. After its introduction for the 1949 model year, the full-size “Eighty Eight” was Oldsmobile’s most profitable for nearly a quarter-century.
The entry-level Dynamic 88 trim was introduced in ’58, powered by Oldsmobile’s iconic “Rocket 88” 6.1-liter V8 engine carbureted by either a de-tuned Econ-O-Way 2-barrel (265 hp), a Quadra-Jet 4-barrel (305 hp), or a trio of 2-barrel carbs (312 hp). All three engine options could be mated to either the standard three-speed manual transmission or a four-speed Hydra-matic automatic.
Though more prominent on the upscale models, the Dynamic 88 counts among the ’58 models referred to by enthusiasts as the “ChromeMobile” for the excessive amount of chrome installed by Oldsmobile during General Motors’ 50th anniversary year.
How to Get the Look
Kris Kristofferson on the set of Cisco Pike (1973), photographed by Baron Wolman.
Cisco Pike dresses an awful lot like Kris Kristofferson, affecting a relatively timeless fall-friendly combination of a brown suede trucker jacket, hardy western-informed shirts, dark Levi’s jeans, and cowboy-affected belt and boots.
- Brown suede trucker jacket with shirt-style collar, six silver-toned front snaps, two pointed-bottom chest pockets (with single-snap pointed cuffs), and single-snap cuffs
- Dark western-styled shirt with pointed front and back yokes, front placket, two chest pockets with single-button pointed yokes, and three-button cuffs
- Cisco prominently wears both an indigo denim snap-up shirt and a black shirt with traditional black buttons and a brown animal-printed yoke design
- Dark indigo denim Levi’s 501® Original Fit five-pocket jeans
- Light-brown leather belt with elongated brass single-prong buckle
- Light-brown napped leather cowboy boots with bug-and-wrinkle vamps and decoratively stitched calf-high shafts
- Silver rope-chain necklace with silver guitar pendant
- Stainless steel wristwatch on dark leather strap
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
My daddy caught me levitatin’ once. Told me I’d go blind.
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